Kinda wild week of good and bad things happening across the board so I figure I'd take a second to see what worked and what didnt in prep of week 5. I hope it also gives a bit more insight as to how I typically build when the time comes.
Projections
QBs, WRs and TEs
Since I make my own projections, I figured I'd start here since I really wanted to throw out there that Kyler Murray sucks. Normally I dont play a double digit owned QB, but no way for me to see that he would absolutely suck. Didnt watch the game so I cant tell if he was playing blindfolded, handcuffed, or just plain high. Let me know if anyone has insight on that. These highlight the top situations for the QB situations here:
Jayden Daniels did hold up his end of the deal. I see he had higher probability of hitting as well so that probably should have been something I called out. Also the DK leverage on him is interesting - missed that. Him coming off a short week did not impact him at the slightest.
Darnold also ended up coming in hot and finishing OK with 22.5 DKP at his price. Williams and Joe Burrow = pretty much letdowns that I think I'm OK with because of the next section on WRs.
Typically for the QB to do well, you would expect that his WRs will also do well enough to be a top play. Harrison got an early TD but thats all Murray really had to show for things. Diggs and Nico were telling of expectations of CJ Stroud having a decent day. Nico was top performer at 36 pts and both of those WRs scored TDs. Olave ended up with 16.7 pts, and Deebo had 10, which means Carr and Purdy could have been in play potentially, although I liked neither due to lack of usage in their offenses. Godwin, I forget, projected well - since I had him listed as WR1, but Evans actually did score 23 pts, which also puts Baker into play, who I dont typically like playing either due to his usage. Playing Baker would get you 31 pts. Pat Freiermuth may have been the best play in the range with 16.7 pts. Otherwise that position tends to stink so I usually wait til the end to fill that spot with remaining salary. If you were stacking your QB based on TE, I suppose that opens up Justin Fields, who was the top scorer on the slate.
RBs and DST
These two positions correlate the most, although QB and WR sometimes pairs with RB too. So in thinking about the RBs this week, I believe Kamara was the only one to succeed in projections at 24 pts. The game situation definitely dictates the type of work the RB gets, so I'll pair this section with this:
Cleveland was in a good spot to run per my metrics, but they simply stunk this week and didnt rush any TDs. Arizona had success with James Connor getting to 100 yards, while Philly - didnt use Barkley the way I had hoped. Maybe losing Brown and Devonta messed them up. Chargers in a negative game script as well. Pitt had a chalky Najae Harris do nothing but Justin Fields rushed for like 2 TDs. Aaron Jones for Minn scored about 18 DKP, which is kinda neutral this week.
For Defenses:
I typically play the top rated DST each week and hope for the best. This week, San Fran put up 22 points at sub 5% ownership so that panned out well. Eagles got smoked, Browns got beat but scored 11, Packers ended up giving up a lotta points (projected that way, but scored 7), and Chiefs were good in real life but only scored 6 in fantasy. I think there is typically some use in stacking the Defense with an offensive player like RB, which would be a nod to Mason or Deebo this past week so I hope someone did that with Mason, who scored 27. 49 stack points for those that did.
Experimental Sims
If youre wondering how the sims really did this week, I tried to look a bit closer at just that. First the lineup target came up a bit short, as it mentioned needing about 197 points this week in GPP. That may be good for some contests, but millimaker wise itd have given you a top 220th area finish. I will say that using the target scores for each, it didnt do as bad as I initially thought in finding players that would pan out this week.
I circled any player that gave a satisfactory score (typically 20 pts or close to it). I also drew a line to any players that I felt were in range of the score. The goal for me is to get this closer so that I can filter the plays down, granted me filtering this list down also likely kept me away from Jayden, so there is a tradeoff. I will think through that some more in the upcoming weeks. I am just posting the filters I used for each position above, below:
Random notes?
Most weeks the Ceiling plays usually guide to a nice build - this week they did not, with Hurts, Burrow and Bo Nix right above Jayden Daniels in terms of measuring workloads. I think I need to watch a Bo Nix game because that dude somehow had -7 passing yards at the half! Thats impressive with his high usage. Kyler Murray was actually filtered out of my QB chart as a potential play and I didnt catch that. It is because of the lack of leverage, so that is kinda surprising I didnt see that or believe that hah. Jayden was there, with 2nd highest usage to Burrow.
The Vegas totals as I laid out in the writeup did lead to several upset situations where underdogs either covered the spread or won outright. Not perfect but it was ususable. To review further, take a look here https://www.dfsed.com/post/dfs-nfl-odds-and-leverage-for-draftkings-gpp-week-4-2024.
Otherwise leave me any feedback you might have in the twitter thread related to this post, and thanks for following me on the path to a GPP victory!
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